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Posts tagged "Brushes and Painting"

To create a stroke of paint or create a smooth path for dodging and burning, first create a path with the pen too. Then, make sure that the painting tool that you want to use is set up with the correct options (such as brush size and opacity etc.). Finally, from the Paths panel fly-out, menu, select Stroke path and select the desired tool. This can be extremely helpful for example, when trying to follow curves in a object such as an edge on a car to add a highlight to. Note that you can also choose the simulate pressure option to simulate pressure sensitivity of the tool.

To paint a straight line, hold the shift key while dragging a stroke. Or, click once with a painting tool, then release the mouse, hold the shift key and click again to draw a straight line between the two points.

To define a Custom brush, use one of the selection tools to select the desired area. Then, choose Edit > Define Brush Preset. The brush appears B/W even if you sampled a color area in the image because all brushes are defined as B/W, in order to paint with your selected foreground color. The new custom brush will appear in the Brush Presets panel and can be easily modified (if desired) using the Brush panel (select the brush tip and then modifying any additional attributes).

When removing power lines or content that falls along a straight line, clicking on the starting point and then Shift -clicking on the end of the line will instruct Photoshop to draw a straight line between the two clicks. (This works with many of the painting tools – including the Spot Healing Brush with the Content Aware option). If the content to be removed is not straight, try using the Pen tool to trace the content, then use the flyout menu on the Paths panel to Stroke the Path with the Spot Healing Brush to remove the unwanted areas.

PSCS5 – When using the Rotate View tool to rotate the canvas for easier drawing and painting, the brushes will no longer rotate with the canvas rotation, instead they remain at the orientation of the original artwork regardless of the viewing angle. Yea!

PSCS5 – The two most common brush attributes (size and opacity) can now be locked on/off using the new icons in the Options Bar. Of course you can still lock attributes using the Lock icon in the Brush panel (to lock settings such as Shape Dynamics, Scatter, Texture etc.).

PSCS5 – The painting tools which have panels associated with them, display the associated panel’s icon is next to the Tool Preset Picker in the Option bar (in previous versions the icon was located to the far right). For example, with the Brush tool selected clicking on the Brush Panel icon quickly toggles the Brush on/off. Similarly, with the Healing Brush Tool, clicking the Clone Source icon will toggle the Clone Source Panel on/off.

PSCS5 – When using the New Natural Media Bristle Tips, clicking in the Bristle Brush Preview will toggle between three different views. Shift-clicking in the preview will toggle a color rendering of the brush. (If you are having a difficult time distinguishing between the different views try selecting a Flat Fan tip shape.) If the Bristle Brush Preview is not visible, click the left most icon on the Brush or Brush Presets panel (a natural media tip must be selected in order for the Bristle brush preview icon to be enabled).

PSCS5 – There are four customizable keyboard shortcuts specifically designed for the Mixer Brush in PSCS5. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and using the Shortcuts for “Tools” scroll the to the bottom until you reach:
Load Mixer Brush
Clean Mixer Brush
Toggle Mixer Brush Auto-Load
Toggle Mixer Brush Auto-Clean
Then, enter in your own custom keyboard shortcut to enable the option(s).